Famous Russian Composers of Classical Music Contact Famous Russian Composers Russian composers have created some of the most beautiful and powerful classical music. They hold a special place in my heart, and they're also separated geographically and historically form the rest of Europe. Since there are so many of them, and they're a tight-knit bunch, I've put several of them here on one page. Of course there's Peter Tchaikovsky as well, but he's famous enough to have his own section. In the 19th century, a group called The Five (Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Borodin and Cesar Cui) banded together and made their goal the promotion of purely Russian music. Their compositions were inspired by Russian history and folk stories, and used traditional tunes and harmonies. It's the perfect example of nationalist music, which had a huge rise all over Europe towards the end of the 1800s. This was a golden age for Russian classical music. It was only really at this point that the Russian's efforts began to be appreciated by their European peers, who previously thought it was crude and unsophisticated. Here are some of the big names...

One of the most skilled and inventive orchestrators of all-time, Rimsky-Korsakov had the ability to create astonishingly rich and creative orchestral sound worlds. His talent wasn't the product of extensive practice, but some innate, maybe even divine, gift. He started out not as a musician, but as a naval officer. During his 3-year long round-the-world cruise as a cadet, he wrote his first symphony. He hadn't had any musical training before so it took him a while! On his return he was mentored by Mily Balakirev, and then became Professor of Composition at the Saint Petersburg conservatory. He is world-famous for such pieces as the Flight of the Bumblebee (from the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan), Capriccio Espagnol , and Sheherezade . He wrote 13 operas, three symphonies, and several other orchestral and chamber pieces. Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) A later Russian composer, Glazunov was introduced to the already famous and established Balakirev and Rimksy-Korsakov at an early age. His talent was huge and he progressed exceptionally quickly.

He became the director of the Saint Petersburg conservatory, and later the Leiningrad conservatory after the Russian revolution. But the Soviet government didn't like his methods and his drinking habits, so he eventually fled the country in 1928. His music is a kind of mix of the styles of other Russian composers, with a graceful confidence and wonderfully joyous melodies. Even during his own lifetime the public thought of him as slightly old-fashioned! Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Mussorgsky's story is one of the most tragic stories of all the Russian composers. His music is also slightly different, with a rawer, harsher sound. Still, the beauty and genius of his music is impossible to deny. His work wasn't recognized enough until after his death, when other composers like Rimsky-Korsakov polished the pieces up to 'performance standard' (although loads of people, including me, now prefer Mussorgsky's dark originals!) He was a hugely talented pianist as a child, but joined a military academy and had an uneventful life in the civil service. His life went on a downward spiral of poverty, depression, and alcoholism , until he died at age 42.

He is most remembered for the masterful opera Boris Godunov, the chilling orchestral thunderbolt Night on Bald Mountain , and the Pictures at an Exhibition suite. Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) Ah, the polymath! Known for his achievements in chemistry as much as music, Borodin was a both scientist and composer. Born into an aristocratic family, he became a member of The Five later in life, even though music was hardly more than a serious hobby for him. Borodin created expansive, floating harmonies in some of his songs for voice and piano, which directly inspired French composer Claude Debussy 's luxuriously free-form harmonies. His most famous works are the two beautiful string quartets, and the opera Prince Igor (from which the popular series of Polovtsian Dances come). Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1843) Rachmaninoff has the reputation of writing dark, sultry, impossibly difficult piano music - at least that's how I see him! This huge-handed Russian gained fame as a concert pianist before becoming even more renowned as a composer. He moved from Russia to the USA.

Inspired by Tchaikovsky, his music goes even further and has a richly deep and complex quality, as well as some exceptionally beautiful melodies. His output includes piano concertos, huge amounts of solo piano music, dozens upon dozens of beautiful songs, the hugely popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, grand orchestral tone poems like The Crag, and the deeply spiritual Vespers . Mily Balakirev (1837-1906) The oldest of the Five, and their leader. Balakirev brought them together and led them to create and promote their uniquely Russian music. His influence on the younger Russian composers in his circle is huge - lots of ideas that Rimsky-Korsakov or Mussorgsky used actually originated in Balakirev's head! His music was actually highly original and exciting, but he had a habit of laziness and didn't finish music until sometimes decades after he started writing it. Because of this, he's not as famous as a composer which I think he deserves to be. You can explore more about the lives of these Russian composers and their music by clicking on the links scattered above. Happy reading!

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov | Russian composer | Britannica.com Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov Alternative Title: Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov Modest Mussorgsky Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, in full Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (born March 6 [March 18, New Style], 1844, Tikhvin, near Novgorod , Russia —died June 8 [June 21], 1908, Lyubensk), Russian composer, teacher, and editor who was at his best in descriptive orchestrations suggesting a mood or a place. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, detail of a portrait by V.A. Serov; in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. H. Roger-Viollet Early life and naval career Rimsky-Korsakov was the product of many influences. His father was a government official of liberal views, and his mother was well educated and could play the piano. His uncle was an admiral in the Russian navy, and his elder brother was a marine officer.

From them Rimsky-Korsakov acquired his interest in music and his abiding love for the sea. When he was 12 years old the family moved to St. Petersburg , where he entered the naval academy. At age 15 he began taking piano lessons and learned the rudiments of composition . In 1861 he met the composer Mily Balakirev , a man of great musical culture , and under the older man’s guidance he began to compose a symphony . In 1862 he graduated from the naval academy. Soon afterward he sailed on the clipper ship Almaz on a long voyage, the vessel anchoring in New York City; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, D.C., at the height of the American Civil War . Since Russia was politically sympathetic toward the North, the sailors were cordially welcomed there. Subsequent ports of call were Brazil (where he was promoted to the rank of midshipman), Spain, Italy, France, England, and Norway. The ship returned to its home port of Kronstadt (Kronshtadt) in May 1865. For young Rimsky-Korsakov the voyage confirmed a fascination with the sea.

Aquatic scenes abound in his operas and symphonic works: the ocean in Scheherazade (1888), Sadko (1898), and The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), and the lake in The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia (1907). On his return to St. Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov completed the symphony begun before his voyage, and it was performed with gratifying success in St. Petersburg on December 31, 1865, when the composer was only 21 years old. His next important work was Fantasy on Serbian Themes for orchestra, first performed at a concert of Slavonic music conducted by Balakirev in St. Petersburg, on May 24, 1867. The occasion was of historic significance, for, in reviewing the concert, the critic Vladimir Stasov proudly proclaimed that henceforth Russia, too, had its own “mighty little heap” (moguchaya kuchka) of native composers.

The name caught on quickly and found its way into music history books, with specific reference to Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin, César Cui , and Modest Mussorgsky. The composers became known collectively as The Five , and their purpose was seen to be to assert the musical independence of Russia from the West. Of the five, Rimsky-Korsakov was the most learned and the most productive; he composed works in all genres , but he most excelled in the field of opera . Teacher, conductor, and editor 2017 Rock Hall Inductees Announced So high was Rimsky-Korsakov’s reputation that in 1871, when he was still a very young man, he was engaged to teach composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In his autobiographical Chronicle of My Musical Life (1972, originally published in Russian, 1909) he frankly admitted his lack of qualifications for this important position; he himself had never taken a systematic academic course in musical theory, even though he had profited from Balakirev’s desultory instruction and by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ’s professional advice.

Eager to complete his own musical education, he undertook in 1873 an ambitious program of study, concentrating mainly on counterpoint and the fugue . He ended his studies in 1875 by sending 10 fugues to Tchaikovsky, who declared them impeccable . Music: Fact or Fiction? In 1873 he left the naval service and assumed charge of military bands as inspector and conductor. Although he lacked brilliance as an orchestral leader, he attained excellent results in training inexperienced instrumentalists. His first professional appearance on the podium took place in St. Petersburg on March 2, 1874, when he conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 3. In the same year he was appointed director of the Free Music School in St. Petersburg, a post that he held until 1881. He served as conductor of concerts at the court chapel from 1883 to 1894 and was chief conductor of the Russian symphony concerts between 1886 and 1900.

In 1889 he led concerts of Russian music at the Paris World Exposition, and in the spring of 1907 he conducted in Paris two Russian historic concerts in connection with Serge Diaghilev ’s Ballets Russes . Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Rimsky-Korsakov rendered an inestimable service to Russian music as the de facto editor and head of a unique publishing enterprise financed by the Russian industrialist M.P. Belyayev and dedicated exclusively to the publication of music by Russian composers. After Mussorgsky ’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov edited his scores for publication, making radical changes in what he considered Mussorgsky’s awkward melodic and harmonic progressions, and he practically rewrote Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina . His edited and altered version of Boris Godunov evoked sharp criticism from modernists who venerated Mussorgsky’s originality; but Rimsky-Korsakov’s intervention vouchsafed the opera’s survival.

Mussorgsky’s score was later published in 1928 and had several performances in Russia and abroad, but ultimately the more effective Rimsky-Korsakov version prevailed in opera houses. Rimsky-Korsakov also edited (with the composer Aleksandr Glazunov ) the posthumous works of Borodin . Assessment A strict disciplinarian in artistic matters, Rimsky-Korsakov was also a severe critic of his own music. He made constant revisions of his early compositions , in which he found technical imperfections. As a result, double dates, indicating early and revised versions, frequently occur in his catalog of works. He was at his best and most typical in his descriptive works. With two exceptions (Servilia [1902] and Mozart and Salieri [1898]), the subjects of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas are taken from Russian or other Slavic fairy tales, literature, and history.

These include Snow Maiden (1882), Sadko, The Tsar’s Bride (1899), The Tale of Tsar Saltan, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, and Le Coq d’or (1909). Although these operas are part of the regular repertory in Russian opera houses, they are rarely heard abroad; only Le Coq d’or enjoys occasional production in western Europe and the United States . Of the composer’s orchestral works, the best known are Capriccio espagnol (1887), the symphonic suite Scheherazade , and Russian Easter Festival (1888) overture. “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” from The Tale of Tsar Saltan and the “Song of India” from Sadko are perennial favourites in a variety of arrangements. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Rimsky-Korsakov’s songs are distinguished by simple elegance and fine Russian prosody; his chamber music is of less importance. He also wrote a piano concerto. As a professor of composition and orchestration at the St.

Petersburg Conservatory from 1871 until the end of his life (with the exception of a brief period in 1905 when he was dismissed by the reactionary directorate for his defense of students on strike), he taught two generations of Russian composers, and his influence, therefore, was pervasive . Igor Stravinsky studied privately with him for several years. His Practical Manual of Harmony (1884) and Fundamentals of Orchestration (posthumous, 1913) are still used as basic musical textbooks in Russia. Russian Composers NIKOLAI MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950) Nikolai Myaskovsky was born in the military frontier town of Novo Georgiyevsk (present day Lomze) in the Warsaw governorate of the Polish territories of the Tsarist empire on April 20, 1881. He was the second son of Yakov Konstantinovich Myaskovsky and Vera Nikolayevna. Both parents had military backgrounds, and Nikolaiï¿½s father, Yakov was the military engineer in charge of building forts on the frontier with Prussia.

The first seven years of Nikolaiï¿½s life were spent in a small military cottage in Novo Georgiyevsk where his two sisters also were born, Vera (1885) and Valentina (1887). Nikolaiï¿½s grandfather Konstantine Ivanovich had been a tutor at the military Cadet College of Orel, where Yakov had studied, and had also worked as a noted military engineer building fortresses for the Russian Empire. His maternal grandfather, Nikolai Petrakov, had been a supervisor at the military gymnasium in Nizhni Novgorod. In 1888, the family moved for a spell to Orenburg, and in 1889 to Kazan, where Nikolaiï¿½s third sister, Eughenia (1890) was born. It was in Kazan in 1891 that Nikolai began serious music lessons and he also was enrolled in a Cadet College ï¿½the beginning steps of a military engineering career. His first profound musical memory was listening to a piano duet of a medley from Mozartï¿½s Don Giovanni.

He and his brother attended the local summer theatre and he had strong inspiration from Glinkaï¿½s Ivan Susanin, and Orphee aux enfers, and Verstovskyï¿½s The Tomb of Ascold. He showed from the earliest times a very good ear and strong memory and enjoyed scales, exercises and mastered quickly Bertiniï¿½s Etudes. It was in Kazan, and then from 1893 in Nizhni Novgorod that Nikolai began to demonstrate his strong artistic independence and intellectual drive which was to characterize him for the rest of his life. He became a prolific reader of literature and the intellectual arts journals of the day, he was a very assiduous student and was usually tops in his cadet class, and still as a teenager he began playing both classical and popular works and trying out simple composition. Although he took formal music lessons in at the College in Nizhni Novgorod, his strongest frustration was that he was frequently chased off the piano and he felt he did not get enough practice time. Perhaps this led him later to teach himself violin inspired by his cousin, Karl Bogdanovich Brandt, a violinist himself.

Nikolai was good enough to play violin in the College orchestra In 1895 the family moved to St. Petersburg, where in addition to his studies at the Second Cadet College, he began to attend regular concerts around the capital. Brandt often took the teenaged Nikolai to operas and Sunday concerts. At one of these Nikolai was swept away by Beethovenï¿½s Second Symphony, especially the larghetto. The family apartment on Znamenskaya Street became a lively cultural salon. Not only did Nikolai play duets with Brandt, but he also became acquainted with some distant relatives, the Gorodenskys from Helsinki. Alexandra Gorodenskaya was a composer of some accomplishment at that time and her daughter, Maria a skilled pianist. Nikolai and Maria became regular piano partners and, with the mother, the three of them played symphonies and overtures of classics from the German school of composers. In December1896, he attended a concert of Tchaikovskyï¿½s Sixth Symphony directed by the famous Arthur Nikisch. Again this was one of the moving music memories of the young Nikolaiï¿½s life.

He was presented a score of this symphony as a present, which remained one of Nikolaiï¿½s prized possessions for the rest of his life. After his graduation from the military high school in 1899, Nikolai was enrolled in the School of Military Engineering, much against his inclination and desires. His circle of friends at the university included some fanatical followers of Russian progressive, nationalist music, at that time represented by the Big Fiveï¿½Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, and Balakirev. Rimsky-Koraskov was the pre-eminent composer of the day and a cultural giant in St. Petersburg. Ironically he had a somewhat similar background to Nikolai, being as he also had studied as a military cadet and as a naval officer, before he could break from the military to pursue music professionally. For the next eight years, Nikolai tried to balance his studies in military engineeringï¿½which was directing him to a military career in the path of his father and grandfatherï¿½and his increasing commitment and love of music. He balanced this by very intensive work.

Early in this period, when he was in the fappers battalion in Moscow, he took his first composition lessons with the young, soon to be famous composer, Reinholdt Gliere, a student of Sergei Taneyev who had recommended him. Through his assiduous pursuit of music outside of his military studies, he fell into the cityï¿½s top musical circles. He became a regular at the society of modern music and met Rimsky Korsakov at one of these gatherings. This latter recommended one of his students to begin teaching Nikolai composition. It was in this time in the early years of the 20th century that Myaskovsky began composing. The impetus was both his activity with the Modern Music Society and a renewed interest in modernist Russian literature. He became a follower of Mir Iskustva and Novaya Zizhn and fell in with a circle of modernist poets. He was especially fond of the poetry of Zinaida Gippius to whose verse he set many of his early works. He also began composing songs to works by the Russia symbolist poets. In active service he had to serve as an engineer in Zaraysk and then in Moscow, but he was fortunate to be posted back in St.

Petersburg after only a brief absence. By the year 1905, he had decided to apply for a second degree to the Academy of Law as a way of getting out of the military. But in summer, instead of preparing for his entrance exam he dedicated himself almost entirely to composing songs and pieces for the piano. Much of these he subsequently destroyed thinking that they were immature and dilettantish. By 1906, he had decided that he must get into the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and, although he was still serving his time in the army, all his efforts were dedicated to preparing for the entrance exam after 1907, when his term in the military expired. He was in fact a late comer to the conservatory, being 25 years old when he applied. His exams were conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyadov, and Glazunov, all world famous composers of the day. It was a very intimidating experience, and to satisfy Rimsky-Korsakov he had to hide his admiration for Richard Strauss, whom the grand composer particularly disliked. He presented to Glazunov his entrance composition the C minor sonata.

Nikolai was admitted and these same examiners became his professors. His cohort of students including many future musicians and composers of note, but none became closer or was a more important friend than Sergei Prokoviev, who was ten years junior to Myaskovsky. The summer of 1907, after his admission to the conservatory and his final resignation from the army engineers corps, Nikolai embarked on his first period of adult composition and he worked prolifically. It was also in that summer that he himself gave harmony lessons to a candidate for the conservatory, which began his long career in musical pedagogy. In the winter of 1908, he began writing his First Symphony. He quickly determined that composition was his main focus at the Conservatory. By the time he graduated in 1911, he had composed a number of piano sonatas, another symphony, a few overtures, and a sinfonietta. It was in the summer of that year that his long friendship and sponsorship by the important conducter N. Sarajev began. It was this latter who introduced the Second Symphony in a concert in Moscow. Myaskovsky also found support promptly from the music critic V.

Derzhanovsky. Up until the beginning of the first world war, Nikolai activity composed a number of new works including drafts of his third symphony. The war and the revolution were an interruption. He was called back into the army and served in front lines in Galicia, which he claimed gave him a more democratic outlook on society. He spent 1917 in Revel with the navy and only returned to St. Petersburg in early 1918 for convalescence. Nevertheless he wrote his fourth symphony while recovering, and after the navy transferred him to Moscow in 1919 he wrote the fifth symphony. It was in 1919 that he was appointed to the Moscow Conservatory and became a member of the Soviet organization the Bureau of Composers. But 1919 was a dark year for Myaskovsky. His father, who was a general in the Tsarï¿½s service nobility, was gunned down on a train station platform by a revolutionary who could not stand the symbols of the old order. Nikolai and his sisters of course were products of this old order and to survive ever after they had to dissemble both their feelings and views and their backgrounds.

He was aided by his appetite for prodigious work, both composition and teaching, and by his gentle and taciturn, even retiring personality. Perhaps it was this mild and reticent character which kept him from ever marrying. In the 1920s and 30s Myaskovsky kept extremely busy and kept out of the political intrigues which plagued the Soviet cultural milieu. In addition to his work in the conservatory and his composition (he wrote another five symphonies during this period), he served as the assistant director of the music department at the Ministry of Education for a year, and was editor of the Music Publishing House, as well as member of the art section of the state education council and a member of the Academy of Arts. Among his composition students at the Moscow Conservatory over the decades through the second world war, he trained several who would later go on to famous compositional careers in their own right, this group included Alexandrov, Bely, Brankovich , Vitachek, Muradeli, B/Tchaikovsky, but most famous were Kabalevsky , Shebalin, and Khachaturyan . He was greatly admired and loved by his students. Many thought of him a quiet philosopher of music.

As a composer he saw himself as a direct descendent of the Big Five group of Russian composers, but he also acknowledged a very high debt to Glazunov and Scriabin. As an active music critic, he was an early and continuous champion of Prokofiev and Stravinsky ï¿½s music. Interestingly, his friend Prokofiev also was a strong promoter of Myaskovskyï¿½s works in the concert halls of the west during his first period abroad. At the Moscow Conservatory in the early 1920s, Nikolai made a life-long friend with P.A. Lamm, professor. It was through Lamm that Myaskovsky began spending his summers at the dacha in Nikolina Gora. In 1926, Myaskovsky was awarded the title of Artist of Merit of the Russian Soviet Republic, along with his Conservatory colleagues Neuhaus, Goldenweizer, and Igumnov.

In 1940 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts, and in March 1941 the Stalin Prize in recognition of his 21st Symphony, by which time he was widely considered the greatest of the Soviet symphonists, and one of the three greatest Russian and Soviet composers of his time along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich . During the early years of the second world war, after the German invasion of Russia, Myaskovsky was evacuated first to the Caucasus (Kabardino-Balkaria and Tbilisi) and then to Funze (now Bishkek) until mid 1943. Nevertheless he worked on and completed three patriotic symphonies (22nd, 23rd, 24th), string quartets, a sonatina, and several marches as his contribution to the war effort. His 23rd Symphony in fact incorporated folk themes he heard in Kabadino-Balkaria. After the war, Myaskovsky, in his sixties was awarded the laureate as a Peopleï¿½s Artist of the USSR in 1946 felt the sting of Stalinist repression.

Following the celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the October revolution, where it was felt his contribution was too dark and pessimistic, he was denounced by one of his envious colleagues at the Conservatory and in 1948, and this effectively blotted out his career and expelled his works from the concert halls of the Soviet Union. In the last two years of his life, he worked hard in the privacy of his apartment in Sivtsev Vrazhek trying to bring his opus into order and finish one last symphony, his 27th. He was already very sick in late 1949, but he put off recommended surgery until May the next year. But it was too late. The great composer died in his home in the evening of 8 August 1950, aged 69. Famous Russian People. Russian celebrities. Russian poets, Russian painters, Russian artists Isaak Levitan Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a celebrated Russian composer and music teacher. His operas and other musical works are admired not only in Russia but also abroad. In St.

Petersburg there is a Ballet and Opera House named after him. It is situated right opposite the famous Mariinsky Theater. There is also a monument to the composer nearby. George R. Seaman wrote: "Rimsky-Korsakov was truly a man of many parts. Apart from his work as a prolific composer of sixteen operas, and a substantial body of compositions in many other genres, he was also active as a teacher, music inspector, conductor, editor, writer, as well as leading a full and busy life within the bosom of his family.'' Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov was born in a small provincial town of Tikhvin, near Novgorod, 200 km from St. Petersburg. His family was unusual by the age of its members. At the time of his birth his father was 60, his mother 42 and his brother was already a naval officer and was 22 years old. In Tikhvin little Nika learned to play the piano. His parents noticed that he made good progress and had a perfect ear. But they did not pay much attention to this.

At his parents' will, Nika, when he was twelve, entered the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg to become a mariner following his brother. From 1856 to 1862, he attended the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg. From that time he began to go to operas, symphonic concerts and acquired a passion for music. His new music teacher Canille noticed the musical gift of his pupil and told him he should try to compose music himself. Canille explained the general rules of musical composition, set him homework and soon introduced to the composer Miliy Balakirev who was the head of a St. Petersburg musical circle. During the last year of his studies at the Naval Academy (1861-62) Nikolai began to compose a symphony. He was happy and dreamed to become a composer. He joined the group of young composers who later became known as "the Mighty Five". This group, led by Balakirev, urged Russian composers to stress their national heritage in their music.

But his mother and brother (his father died in March 1862) convinced Nikolai that a musical career would not ensure a sufficient income, and therefore he should become a naval officer. In order to do this, he had to embark on a round-the-world trip. In October, 1862 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov set off from Kronstadt as a gardemarine on the clipper "Almaz". He sailed on a three-year naval cruise, during which he visited Germany, England, The United States of America (where he went on a trip to the Niagara Falls), Brazil, France and Spain. He saw many different aspects of nature, particularly of the Northern, Equatorial and Southern seas, the stormy and calm ocean, the starry sky of the Southern hemisphere. All these natural pictures left striking impressions in his memory. Later he interpreted these impressions as well as the natural phenomenon of the North of Russia in his music with a great talent. He created beautiful musical pictures of the sea (e.g. in Sadko , The Tale of the Tsar Saltan , Scheherazade); of the forest with its sounds (e.g.

in The Snow maiden, The Legend of the Invisible Town Kitezh); of the air and sky (e.g. in The Christmas Night, Koshchei the Deathless). He completed his first symphony on board a ship. After returning to St. Petersburg in 1865, he revised the symphony under Balakirev's supervision. It had its first performance that same year in a concert with Mily Balakirev as the conductor, and it was a great success. The audience were astonished, when they saw that the author was a very young naval officer. So his musical career began. Still he had to earn a living and thus only gave up active naval service eight years later. In 1867 Rimsky-Korsakov created a "musical scene" Sadko for the orchestra which won him recognition. The young composer was carried away by a fairy-tale about the strife of a gusli-player with the ocean. As soon as he started writing, the memories of his sea journey were revived – pictures of the raging sea and delicate ripples, luminous water, jet-black southern sky with large shiny stars.

Sadko was the first work of Rimsky-Korsakov where he felt his own creative pulse. And he was captured by a desire to go further and overcome new difficulties. These same years Nikolai found his true love. The works of the musical circle's members were performed by two charming girls – Alexandra and Nadezhda Pourgold. Rimsky-Korsakov admired Nadezhda's performance, and they also found they had much in common. They shared their thoughts, dreams, and plans for the future. In 1871 Nadezhda became Rimsky-Korsakov's fiancee. For many a month now, Nikolai had been obsessed with the idea of writing an opera Pskovityanka ("A Pskov woman") to the play of P. May. The work was going on for four years during which a lot of events happened in Rimsky-Korsakov's life – his brother died; Nikolai got married to Nadezhda and they went abroad for their honey moon – to Switzerland and Northern Italy. Upon their return, in 1873, the premiere of Pskovityanka took place.

The audience warmly received the opera, and in 1, 5 months there were 10 performances of it, and the house was always full. Even in 1871, Rimsky-Korsakov left the Navy and joined the faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He realized that he knew almost no music theory, and so he taught himself counterpoint, harmony, and music form. He became one of the world's greatest music theorists. He taught several students who achieved fame as composers, including Sergey Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky. The latter wrote afterwards: "I worked with him in this way. He would give me some pages of the piano score of a new opera he had just finished (Pan Voyevoda), which I was to orchestrate. When I had orchestrated a section, he would show me his own instrumentation of the same passage. I had to compare them, and then he would ask me to explain why he had done it differently.

Whenever I was unable to do so, it was he who explained." Prokofiev, however, said that "...my lack of respect for Rimsky-Korsakov's teaching did no prevent me from admiring his music; I attended the dress rehearsal and three successive performances of his Kitezh which had its premiere in the spring of 1907, and applauded until my hands ached." Rimsky-Korsakov also edited and revised compositions that his friends Alexander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky had left unfinished when they died. Orchestras and opera companies usually perform Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. Borodin's opera Prince Igor is usually performed in the version completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and the Russian composer Alexander Glazunov. In 1878 Rimsky-Korsakov created an opera May night after the story by N. Gogol. He drew inspiration from Ukrainian folk songs and Ukrainian nature – warm southern nights, silver shining moon under the mirror-smooth ponds. The opera is full of melody going straight from the heart and able to express the feelings of the characters as well as the scene action and dynamics.

The composition of the opera is quite innovative: there are separate performances – songs, ensembles, scenes. The May night was finished but the composer did not want to leave the world of fairy-tales with its striving for the beautiful Good and inevitable punishment for the ugly Evil. He asked the famous Russian playwright N. Ostrovsky permission to use his play Snegurochka (Snow maiden) for his next opera. He wrote libretto himself, and Ostrovsky approved of it. The plot of the Snow maiden allowed Rimsky-Korsakov to show the life of simple people who live in harmony with the nature, and to depict the way of their life, their beliefs and picturesque rituals. Snegurochka was staged in 1882. The staging was luxurious. Ostrovsky himself wrote afterwards: "Rimsky-Korsakov's music to my Snegurochka is amazing; I could never have imagined anything more suitable and expressive for the poetry of ancient pagan cult and this at first icy-cold and then fiery passionate heroine of the fairy-tale". In 1899 the whole Russia celebrated the centenary of Alexander Pushkin's birth.

Rimsky-Korsakov took active part in the celebration. He wrote an opera The tale of tsar Saltan, of his son, the mighty knight Gvidon, and of the beautiful Swan-princess to Pushkin's fairy-tale. It was staged in 1900 in the Private Opera House of S. Mamontov in Moscow. The decorations for it were made by a wonderfully innovative Russian painter M. Vrubel. The house was full, and the opera was the greatest success. In 1902 Rimsky-Korsakov finished one of his most innovative works – the opera Koshchei the Deathless. And then the dreadful day of January, 9, 1905 came. The St. Petersburg citizens were shocked by the "bloody Sunday". It was the day when crowds of simple people came to the Palace Square with a peaceful petition to the tsar where they asked for an 8-hour working day, prohibition of children's labor, improvement of their living and working conditions, salaries increasing etc. The people were shot by the tsarist troops, and that urged the beginning of the first Russian revolution.

Rimsky-Korsakov, who stood out against the tsarist regime, was thrown out of the Conservatory. As a protest, its best professors – Glazunov, Lyadov and others left the Conservatory with him. Rimsky-Korsakov now wanted to create an opera accusing the tsarist regime. The honest and straightforward composer realized that he was watched and that the censure wouldn't let such an opera to be staged, but he nevertheless decided to fulfill his citizen duty, though he knew that it would probably be for the last time. So in 1906 he started work on his Golden Cockerel opera after the poetic fairy-tale by A. Pushkin. It was finished in 1907. The opera was not allowed to be staged – the social satire was too sharp. It was staged later, in 1909, but Rimsky-Korsakov never lived to see it. He had been seriously ill for some time then, and died on June, 21, 1908. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

On the occasion of Rimsky-Korsakov's death, his student Igor Stravinsky composed a Funeral Dirge, and this was performed in St. Petersburg at the first concert of the autumn season, which was entirely dedicated to Rimsky's memory. Unfortunately, the score of this work was lost in the Russian Revolution; but if Stravinsky's memory could be trusted, it was the best of his works before The Firebird. Ted Hewlett, Nashville, Tennessee "You will not be in any way disappointed with this company - by far and away, the very best" Add a theme to your SP tour! Off The Beaten Path: explore the sights that satisfy YOUR own interests and wishes. Was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy Was a teacher - MUSC - 199 View Full Document Was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy Was a teacher, composer Balakirev was a composer who became Rimsky’s teacher Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894) Russian composer Born in Ukraine Pianist, conductor, composer, teacher wrote orchestral,chamber,piano (mostly),stage music Duchess Elena Pavlovna was his patron or supporter. Symphony No. 2 “Ocean” op.

42 (in seven movements) Mostly known for being a pianist “A fountain of bad music” ( was once said about him) Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Teaching, playing piano, working as an accomponist. Wrote operahs, orchestral, choral, chamber, piano, solo, ballet, songs madame von meck: patron of tchaikovsk, also helped debussy tchaikovsk: russian composer (nutcracker) John Ireland (1879-1962) One of his composition teachers was Charles Villard Stanford Made his living as a church organist and choir director Taught at the Royal College of Music in London Spent a great deal of time in the Channel Islands (Between England and France) where he was surrounded by the sea. Composed songs, piano music, chamber music, orchestral music, Amy Beach (1867-1944) Born in New Hampshire Spent most of life in MA Chamber music, secular choral music, juvenalia, keyboard music Married to Henry Beach Started studying the piano at age 6 This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.

Pieces: Program Music: Scheherazade Ochestral piece by Rimsky Korsakov: Scheherazade (symphonic suite) This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document. TERM Varney 1 Kaleigh Varney MUSC 199 12/7/15 Professor Kreiling A Picture in Time The eff 199essay#3,Varney Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Composer - BolshoiRussia.com Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects.

Rimsky-Korsakov believed, as did fellow composer Mily Balakirev and critic Vladimir Stasov, in developing a nationalistic style of classical music. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. However, Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five. His techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner. For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined his composition and teaching with a career in the Russian military—at first as an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, then as the civilian Inspector of Naval Bands. He wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brother's exploits in the navy.

This love of the sea might have influenced him to write two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko (not his later opera of the same name) and Scheherazade. Through his service as Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration. He passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg. Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire (although there is controversy over his editing of the works of Modest Mussorgsky), and shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition. His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism which exemplified Glinka and The Five and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century.

While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Balakirev, Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas and Ottorino Respighi. Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov believed, as did fellow composer Mily Balakirev and critic Vladimir Stasov, in developing a nationalistic style of classical music.

This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. However, Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five. His techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner. For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined his composition and teaching with a career in the Russian military—at first as an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, then as the civilian Inspector of Naval Bands. He wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brother's exploits in the navy. This love of the sea might have influenced him to write two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko (not his later opera of the same name) and Scheherazade.

Through his service as Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration. He passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg. Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire (although there is controversy over his editing of the works of Modest Mussorgsky), and shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition. His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism which exemplified Glinka and The Five and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century.

While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Balakirev, Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas and Ottorino Respighi. Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai | San Francisco Classical Voice San Francisco Classical Voice Composer of Scheherazade and several great operas, Rimsky-Korsakov was also a great teacher, one of the most important influences in 19th-century Russian music. Vital Statistics Born: March 18, 1844 in Tikhvin, east of St. Petersburg Died: June 21, 1908 in Lyubensk, south of St. Petersburg Nationality: Russian Genre: Romantic Performed as: Pianist During the composer's lifetime: Pianist/ composer Anton Rubinstein founds the first music conservatory in Russia, in St. Petersburg (1862); four years later, his brother Nikolai co-founds the Moscow Conservatory.

At Anton's urging, composers are given a bureaucratic rank, recognizing them as professionals in Russia and qualifying them for pensions. Biographical Outline Early life: Rimsky-Korsakov’s family was poor but aristocratic. His mother and grandmother came of peasant stock and he learns his love of Russian folk and religious music from them. But, though he is talented at music, his c hildhood dream is to follow his elder brother into the navy. Naval officer, 1862-1865: After training as a cadet, Rimsky-Korsakov is commissioned to a Russian naval clipper and sets off for a three-year cruise. He buys music scores at every port of call, and visits Rio de Janeiro, New York, London. Amateur composer, 1865-1870: Rimsky-Korsakov’s desk job on returning home gives him plenty of free time for music. He studies composition with Mily Balakirev, leader of the “Mighty Handful” or “Mighty Five,” a group of amateur composers who aim at putting the Russian people’s spirit into music.

Rimsky’s fellows include the army officer Modest Mussorgsky and the chemistry professor Alexander Borodin. Music professor, 1871-1880: Rimsky is appointed professor of composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The directors, impressed by his early work, don’t realize how little formal training he actually has. Rimsky races through the textbooks to keep one lesson ahead of his pupils. Eventually he becomes a master of his craft, and writes textbooks himself. Revisionist, 1881-1887: The premiere of the opera The Snow Maiden (1882) leads to a fallow period, during which Rimsky revises many of his earlier works. After Mussorgsky dies young, his one-time roommate takes on the job of editing and finishing his incomplete compositions. He does the same for Borodin's Prince Igor, and finishes it after the composer's death.

A burst of creativity, 1887-1888: In almost one swoop, Rimsky composes his three greatest orchestral works -- musical pictures of exotic lands, from the Arabia of the symphonic poem Scheherazade to the equally exotic (for a Russian) Spain in the Capriccio Espagnol. And the Russian Easter Overture explores his Orthodox religious heritage. Rejuvenation, 1888-1904: A complete production of Richard Wagner's Nibelung's Ring gives Rimsky a jolt of creative energy. He studies Wagner's scores and sits down to write operas. Personal tragedy strikes when two of his children die and his wife suffers a serious illness. However, Rimsky's association with the Private Opera, run by the industrialist Savva Mamontov, assures his operas first-class productions, which popularize a string of them, including world premieres of Sadko (1897), Mozart and Salieri (1898), The Tsar's Bride (1899), The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), and Kaschey the Immortal (1902).

The political liberal, 1905: In the wake of the abortive revolution of that year, Rimsky-Korsakov forcefully supports the students’ cause in a strike against the Conservatory. The authorities fire him (temporarily, as it turns out) as a professor. 300 students leave the Conservatory with him in a show of support. Last Years 1907-1908: In May, 1907, Rimsky conducts the impresario Serge Diaghilev's Concerts Russe, marking a breakthrough of Russian music in western Europe. The next year he dies on his estate, of angina. Fun Facts His aristocratic surname: An ancestor of the composer’s had traveled to Rome, and was so proud of this that he named his family “the Roman Korsakovs” to distinguish them from all the other Korsakovs. In Russian, “Roman” is “Rimsky.” His distinguished appearance: Rimsky was a great teacher, and he looked like one, too.

He was tall, with a high, scholarly forehead – on which he often kept an extra pair of his thick, blue-tinted, wire-rimmed glasses – a long face, and a full beard which made his face look even longer. The great teacher: From the 1870s on, Rimsky taught a whole line of Russian composers. The most famous are Alexander Glazunov, one of the first, and Igor Stravinsky, one of the last. The year after Rimsky's death, Stravinsky debuted in Paris with The Firebird, which shows his mastery of his teacher’s style, and surely would have pleased the old man greatly had he lived to hear it. His distinctive handwriting: The notes in Rimsky-Korsakov’s manuscript scores all slant evenly to the right. He’s been called the only composer to write music entirely in italics. Not in the catalog: The most famous Rimsky-Korsakov piece that you won't see on a standard list of his works is that fast-buzzing encore favorite, The Flight of the Bumblebee. It’s actually an interlude from his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan.

Prefiguring Amadeus: Among Rimsky’s operas is a one-act item called Mozart and Salieri, based on a verse drama by Alexander Pushkin. It did a lot to publicize the legend that Salieri poisoned Mozart. On the map: The Rimsky-Korsakov Archipelago, in the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok, is named for the composer’s brother Voin, a noted naval hydrographer. Recommended Biography There is no recent biography of Rimsky-Korsakov, but the composer himself wrote an entertaining autobiography, My Musical Life, whose English translation is now out-of-print. Explore the Music Rimsky-Korsakov was one of the most brilliant and colorful orchestrators in the history of classical music. Though steeped in Russian tradition – both folk and liturgical music – his style is lighter and brighter than that of his fellow “Fivers.” He’s best-known for his operas, a large number of orchestral suites drawn from them, and his symphonic poems. Change of heart: While Rimsky started out as a dedicated member of the Mighty Handful group, his style changed when he mastered textbook harmony and he turned away from their radical experiments.

Eventually, in 1894, he had a sad break with his old mentor Balakirev. Some of his later works incorporate styles and forms that the Five generally disparaged, like Wagnerian music drama. Even his interest in Russian folksong ended up different from theirs, because Rimsky was interested in the music's connection to folk culture, especially pantheistic rites. Rimsky was criticized for his editions of his colleagues’ music, especially the polishing and prettying up of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but his aim was to make practical performing scores to help publicize them, and it was in his version that Boris became part of the international repertoire. Recommended Websites

Question: Which Russian composer was also a naval officer?
Answer: Rimsky-Korsakov